


The Shorter Story

by anr



Category: NCIS
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-27
Updated: 2008-10-27
Packaged: 2017-11-04 14:26:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/394857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He'll figure it out later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Shorter Story

**Author's Note:**

> "The Blower's Daughter" (Damien Rice)

_i can't take my eyes off of you_

  


* * *

  


She calls him at three in the morning, dawn still a good two hours away and sleep an hour into his past.

"So, here's the thing, Gibbs."

Her tone is chipper, one hundred percent Abby-pure, so he's not overly worried as he listens to her talk, just shoves his feet into a pair of shoes and grabs his keys.

"Abs," he interrupts her. "Where are you?"

"Longworth Circuit, Virginia Beach."

His front door slams behind him. "Twenty minutes."

  


* * *

  


It's closer to fifteen in the end, when he pulls up beside her hearse, and he opens her door for her as soon as she unlocks it.

"Car trouble?" he asks lightly.

She hands him a coffee with a smile. "Haven't tried starting it yet."

They're in a parking lot meters from the shore, the restless echo of the ocean all around them. When she takes him by the hand and leads him to the sand, a breeze slips into the spaces between them, teasing him with whispers of gunpowder and sawdust. He is instantly turned on.

He takes a long draught of his coffee and sears the roof of his mouth. "You say something about a carnival?"

"Gibbs, you wound me!" They are in the shadows now, away from the sodium lights of the parking lot. Sand crunches beneath their feet. "I was talking about _Disneyland_."

"Oh."

She starts at the beginning again, a story about Snow White and a Haunted House, and he thinks there's a question in there somewhere -- maybe even an invitation? -- but he's comfortably distracted by the taste of salt and coffee, the scent of gunpowder and sawdust, and the warmth of her hand in his.

The beach is long, the hour early. He'll figure it out later.

  


* * *

  


They walk for a mile, two, and back again, leaving the beach just as the sun starts to streak across the horizon.

He follows her to work, his foot riding the brake and his vehicle never more than a car length behind hers, but lets her lose him in the parking garage. By the time he's made a caffeine run, she's ensconced in her lab, heavy metal blaring like an alarm clock and what seems like every one of her computers beeping in concert as she darts from terminal to desk and back again.

He side-steps out of her way and places a Caf-Pow! in her outstretched hand as she passes him by, lab coat and pigtails flaring.

"Totally the best, Gibbs," she says with a grin, signing _thank you_ with her free hand, "legend."

He smiles, and walks away. "Just doin' my part."

  


* * *

  


No open investigations which means paperwork and cold cases, one ear trained to his phone for the calls he never wants to get, and one on his team's bickering. They're talking football today, team mascots and cheerleaders, and he's almost tempted to join in.

His phone rings.

  


* * *

  


A marine is dead, his son missing. Tony favours the ex-wife, Ziva the best friend, McGee the babysitter.

He misses Mexico.

  


* * *

  


"Abby!"

She doesn't flinch at his entrance, barely even looks at him as he crosses the lab to stand at her back. "I got good news, bad news, and disturbingly creepy news." She shudders slightly on the last, and he feels it against his chest.

"Start with the good," he says, resting his hand on her shoulder.

"Aww, Gibbs." She twists so she can look up at him, her sudden dismay disturbingly sincere. "You don't want a happy ending?"

His hand tightens imperceptibly.

  


* * *

  


Nine hours and the babysitter is cleared, if not grounded for the rest of her life when her parents get the news that the marine was paying her to look after more than just his son's needs.

His team settles in for the night.

Nineteen hours and McGee is hacking the IRS, Ziva and Tony exchanging theories with every toss of a wadded ball of paper.

He goes for coffee.

Twenty-nine hours and the pieces are falling into place.

  


* * *

  


The case ends with his weapon recently fired, the boy in blood and tears. Not his bullet, Ducky is quick to reassure him, and nothing more than a flesh wound, but that doesn't make him feel any better.

He heads down to Autopsy long after his team has left, the room dark and sterile and cold. The tips of his fingers are itching, and he wishes he knew what for.

  


* * *

  


He dozes, not out of choice, and knows without opening his eyes that he's no longer alone. His ass is numb from sitting on the floor and he uses that to gauge the time -- twenty-three hundred, no earlier.

"The best friend and the ex-wife," she says musingly. "Sounds like the title of a bad telemovie."

"According to DiNozzo," he says, opening his eyes, "it was."

She's lying on the second last table, directly within his line of sight, but for just a moment he thinks she looks like Kate did when she lay there.

She tilts her head to the side and looks down towards him, shattering the illusion. "You're not allowed to --"

"Stop." The last time he promised her something, he knows, he broke his word. He won't do that again. "Go home, Abs."

Her look is steady, assessing, and when she starts to move, his heart rate accelerates, but she's only turning away. She stares at the ceiling again and starts to hum.

He closes his eyes.

  


* * *

  


There are three things he knows in life: the Corps, NCIS, and boats.

(Tony would add ex-wives to that list but, then, Tony is young still, and sometimes naive -- he'll learn soon enough that it's impossible to know women.)

  


* * *

  


Her lab is a deafening mix of guitars and drums and what sounds like a cat being strangled, but her focus is unwavering as she stands at her computer, typing furiously.

One foot is tapping unconsciously to the screeching and wailing, the silver buckles on her boots winking flashes of light. Her lab coat is off, her skirt short, wifebeater tight. He can see traces of tattoos -- a tendril of web here, the arm of a stick figure there -- when she shifts her weight.

Slapping himself up the back of the head, he places the Caf-Pow! on the bench behind her and leaves before she can catch him.

  


* * *

  


Two hours later he returns. "Whatcha got for me, Abs?"

Her smile is brilliant, her arms around his neck when she throws herself at him a warm comfort. When she pulls away to show him her results, he keeps one hand on the small of her back and pretends.

  


* * *

  


He catches three Petty Officers and lets JAG charge them with grand theft auto. He catches Tony and Ziva masterminding pranks in the stationery supply room and lets McGee hand over all his current paperwork to them. He and Ducky go over a cold case, and after lunch he spends an hour hitting the delete key over and over again on his emails until the stupid thing stops telling him he has mail.

On his way home he buys a bottle of single malt, a new adze, and it's a cheap substitute, he knows that, but the only other option still feels like a one-way ticket to Mexico -- desperately tempting and dangerously final.

  


* * *

  


Lather, rinse, repeat.

  


* * *

  


He dreams of familiar places, familiar faces, and wakes on instinct. His gun is in hand before he's even out of bed and he makes his way to his front door cautiously. It's storming outside, rain and thunder and lightning, but the shadows slipping under his door are person-shaped and centred in front of his lock.

He hears a curse, soft and frustrated.

Thumbing the safety again on his Sig, he places it on the small table to his right and opens the door.

"Abs?"

She looks up at him with a small wave, a hook pick and torque wrench still in hand. "Hey, Gibbs."

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Ziva's been showing me how to pick locks," she says, like that explains everything.

He doesn't buy it. "You can already strip a lock more ways than anyone else I know."

"In the lab, sure. But in the field?"

"Since when is my front door considered the field?"

"Well, I could hardly pick my _own_ front door, Gibbs," she says, getting to her feet with his help. "Where would be the challenge in that?"

Rain drips from her clothes and onto his bare feet. He pulls her inside.

  


* * *

  


He sends her to the bathroom and takes a walk while she showers. Her hearse is parked two blocks over, under a broken streetlight, and he spends the minute drive back to his place imagining all the ways he will kick her ass for being so stupid.

She's waiting at his front door when he gets back, wearing one of his t-shirts and not much else, and now it's his turn to drip rain on her bare feet.

"I have a speech, if you're interested," she says, watching him bolt the door. "An excellent list of reasons why and why not."

He turns to face her. "I'm not."

She steps into his space. "Gibbs." Her hair is wet-slick against her cheeks, her makeup washed clean away. "I want to kiss you."

"No." His hands are on her hips, moving her back a step, back two, back against a wall. "You want _me_ to kiss _you_."

Her smile is lethal, her hands soft on his collarbone. "Well, duh."

  


* * *

  


Rain and thunder and lightning, and Abby in his bed, white skin and black ink. She tastes like caffeine and sugar, moves like water around him, with him.

He smells gunpowder and sawdust, and falls.

  


* * *

  


Dawn on the horizon when he wakes, the weight of her head on his shoulder grounding him in a way he never expected.

"You know how you said you'd come to Disneyland with me in the summer?" she asks sleepily, rubbing her cheek on his chest.

Did he? "Hmm."

"Best come on ever."

He runs his fingers through her hair, and smiles.

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/317738.html>


End file.
